The party will also discuss the “race relations” meetings that Manning has been holding in his San Fernando East constituency.
Read the story: Manning warns of social unrest in T&T, says God is no trini
Commenting on the vote in Parliament Friday Opposition Chief Whip Marlene McDonald said the PNM’s Parliamentary caucus decided unanimously last week to abstain from voting on Manning’s motion.
Three PNM MPs — Patricia McIntosh, Dr Amery Browne and Fitzgerald Jeffery — voted with Manning on the motion. Two of them left the House to avoid the vote and the others abstained. One PNM MP – Donna Cox – was absent for Friday’s sitting.
McDonald told reporters the view at the caucus was that Mannining’s motion amounted to turning the Privileges Committee into a court of law.
Manning was at the caucus, the first he attended since the PNM’s defeat in last years’s general election. However, he left before the caucus made its final decision, McDonald said.
“After he left the caucus, the remainder of the MPs and the senators, unanimously said that what we will do is that we will get a seconder for the motion but we would abstain,” she told reporters.
She said the caucus asked that Manning remove all of the offending clauses. “The caucus asked me to communicate this to Mr Manning. I did and he refused,” McDonald told the media. “Our position was that we will abstain. That is exactly what we did. That was PNM’s position.”
McDonald said opposition leader Keith Rowley would deal with those persons who broke ranks and supported Manning but did not say if the PNM leader would discipline Manning.
She said, “Dr Rowley is going through pain in building a new and credible PNM. I am telling you that nothing is going to stop him and his new executive from achieving that goal."
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